Review: Pulp at the Warfield

The reunion tour by the famed Britpop band, which originally called it quits back in 2002, has been one of the season’s hottest tickets – especially in the Bay Area, where Pulp sold out San Francisco’s 2,200-capacity Warfield in roughly five minutes.

And it’s no mystery why – the British band boasts an incredibly deep songbook, an armful of alt-rock hits that just seem to get better with each passing year and, most treasured of all, fantastic front-man Jarvis Cocker.

All of those assets, plus many more, were proudly on display during the Warfield gig. The two-hour show was a blast basically from start to finish, as Cocker and his Sheffield mates – keyboardist Candida Doyle, guitarist Mark Webber, bassist Steve Mackey and drummer Nick Banks –pummeled their passionate fans with a diversely appealing, though entirely catchy, collection of songs.

Cocker remains one of the genre’s most fascinating stars. He’s classy and cool – somewhat reminiscent of Roxy Music’s Bryan Ferry – yet completely unafraid to clown it up. He embraces the rock star persona and also toys with it. The overall result is a strikingly original character, one that might best be described as a “lounge lizard fronting an arena-rock band.”

The 48-year-old singer is also quite funny. His between-song banter was often nearly as enjoyable as the tunes themselves.

“Thank you for coming,” he said to the crowd near the end of the show. “I know that sounds trite. But if you hadn’t have come, then it would just be a sound check – and that would be incredibly boring.”

Cocker even talked some politics – or, perhaps, “mocked some politics” is a more accurate description.

“In general, politicians aren’t very attractive,” he said. “I guess that’s why they become politicians, because they aren’t going to get (sex) any other way.”

Here is the set list from the Warfield show (from the great Website – www.setlist.fm):